A Ripened World
by bumblebee1
Summary: Rilla looks up at Captain Kenneth Ford, this tall man, with whom she was corresponding during the years of the war...was it all a dream? Meanwhile, Dr. Blythe and Susan are having a fit over the affair! "Could you please explain to me Mrs. Dr. dear!"


Montgomery has always had a distinguished charm for me. No matter what books I read I always go back to "Rilla of Ingleside". It has touched me so deeply, not in a tragic way or an explosive way. In a quiet slow manner that makes my heart ache whenever I remember those gorgeous gorgeous people in the book…

I feel like I am part of the Ingleside clan only they don't know it!

I read it first when I was twelve probably. I am twenty-one now and I think I have read it eight or nine times! In all those times, I was Anne looking down on her children, Susan spoiling them, Gilbert proud of his beautiful family. I was Walter looking fondly at his little sister, I was Ken falling in love with her, I was Rilla adoring Walter, dreaming shyly of Ken in a secret chamber of her mind, and hating Jem for calling her "spider!". But then, I was also the entire Glen looking upon the Blythes and gossiping about their affairs!

I love this book…

**A Ripened World:**

**A rewriting of the last chapter of "Rilla of Ingleside"**

"Come into the parlor, you two. It's too hot for you out there, Rilla. No, not even the verandah." Dr. Blythe said with a pat on Rilla's cheek.

Ken was starting to feel rather foolish. How was he to hint to the his love's father that he needed to speak with her alone, to confide a profound and bubbling love for her. He stood there at the doorway with his hands behind his back waiting in a silence that was becoming all the more stifling. His cheeks were starting to burn. Four years of fearsome prowess in battle with every ounce of his rigid masculinity exhausted and he still felt that boyish flush at a glance from Rilla, the girl he dreamed of every night as the bombs thundered in distant hills.

She was standing by the stair. She had just come down after having slept for most of the morning. Her slender frame was swathed with a filmy white gown that reminded him of a cooling breeze in a hot summer day. The horror of the war inside his head was quieted at the smooth apple-blossomy sight of her. She looked delicate in the quiet shimmer of sunlight that poured through the windows on either side of the front door. Her eyelashes were still thick and dark, fanning against cheeks that had now lost their familiar bloom.

"Rilla,"

He had meant to say it in a deep friendly voice but it came out as a tortured whisper. Dr. Blythe looked at him quizzically.

He cleared his throat. "Rilla," he said again, barely above the whisper, "How are you?"

She looked up. The sun burnished her auburn hair. In her eyes he saw a tragic look. _How could you ask me this question after years of ceaseless suffering?_ They seemed to say.

"This morning I mean." He corrected himself.

"Better."

There. He heard it. Her voice. There were times when the bombing plucked the shivering heart out of his chest. In those times, he played Rilla's voice in his head above its deafening roar. But there were times when her voice would waver and he would wonder if he had only imagined it.

Before he left, she had promised him that she would not let anyone else kiss her. Had she kept the promise? Or did her heart turn towards another in the years of his absence. Suddenly all the letters that he wrote her seemed like a fool's illusion. What if, in the confusion of the war, they had both been living in a dream? What if she had only been comforting herself with the thought of a loved one, miles and miles away?

Dr. Blythe finally gave Rilla's shoulder a squeeze and walked past Ken into the parlor. "Good to have you here, son." He said.

In the parlor, Anne was excitedly wringing her hands. She delighted over her children's romances and always had. She recalled before the war even wheezed out its presence how she, Susan, and Miss Cornelia would read about their romances and flirtations in the _Glen Notes_.

_The dears_! She thought, _and Ken is such a wonderful boy_.

Gilbert came in from the hallway, ignorantly looking for the newspaper as though there was nothing of importance happening just outside the door.

"Gilbert!" she hissed, getting up to take his arm. "Why didn't you let her walk with him?"

At this statement, Gilbert's nose began to smell something suspicious upon the air.

"She is still too weak to walk in the sun, Anne. She could barely walk down the stairs! Rilla need not over-exert herself at all. I told her to stay in bed all day but she did not listen to me."

"Oh Gilbert!" Anne huffed. She grabbed his arm and practically dragged him through the dining room to the study.

"What on earth"

Anne ignored him and gently closed the door behind her. She whirled around with a girlish giggle.

"Your daughter is about to be wooed into an engagement by brave Captain Ford!"

"What?!"

Anne nodded. Gilbert saw the old stars in her eyes that signified the return of the old matchmaker in her. Then the realization of her announcement began to crumble his insides. His baby daughter was out there with a tall man who had a scar of on his cheek and the horrors of the war still reeling before his eyes. He had to go out and whisk her away.

"Gilber don't be silly!" Anne hissed at him as he hurried to the door.

"Anne do you really think I am going to leave my daughter alone in a situation like this? And what if she has another nervous breakdown?"

"Leave her alone indeed! Gilbert she is twenty years old!" Anne said, trying her best not to laugh, "He loves her."

"Loves her! Nonsense! How would you know anyway?"

"Gilbert this has been happening even before Ken left for England."

"What? Why didn't you tell me? Why doesn't anyone tell me anything around here?"

"Sweetheart!"

She placed a gentle wifely palm on his cheek. "How could I tell you anything when Rilla was only sixteen. Their love was yet an unsure fondling!"

Gilbert sighed like one who was trapped in an inevitable wind. "Does she _love_ him?"

Anne looked at the door as though she could see through the walls into her daughter's heart.

"I don't know." She replied, "Rilla's become so quiet nowadays. I don't know what she feels about anything.

_He spent the night here_, Rilla realized.

Ken walked toward her and she was surprised by how tall he was, as though she had just met him. She must have forgotten. He loomed above her in his crisp gray suit, bedecked with finely woven badges. It felt to her like his presence had attained a new buzzing power. His nearness sent little shocks through her nerves and she started wondering whether it was only her fever.

She forced herself to look up and scan his face. How could she have thought he was Walter? Even for a second? But that second was what had shattered her consciousness. Yesterday afternoon, at the sight of him walking along the path to the verandah, she had literally collapsed in her mother's arms.

Now, in those few moments when she observed him, she noted that there was not a speck of likeness in him to her brother but for the coloring. His face was still smooth, polished and shaven but his blue eyes had lost their merriment. It seemed to her that his soul had grown and risen much higher above hers.

As she mentally replayed her fainting spell, she remembered that there had been a voice in her head that said _No Rilla, that's Ken _right before she had lost consciousness. Now, she felt so idiotic and weak before the man who had seen blood and death, and mutilated bodies before his eyes for years.

"Rilla-My-Rilla?" he questioned.

Had Walter passed the pet name on to him before he died? It sounded different from Ken's lips, richer perhaps, more endearing and possessive.

Or did it? She no longer knew what to think. Was it endearing? Or friendly? Or the product of a mere accident?

She swallowed. "You're back."

Was this truly the man she had been corresponding romantically with for four years? Suddenly all the words she had ever written him seemed to lie flat and colorless like dead flies against a window. Twenty years old and she felt like the foolish fifteen year old who could not sit still at the thrilling idea of her first party. Did she really call him _sweetheart_ in one of those silly letters? Oh why did she have to be such a brainless goose?

Just when mortification seemed as merciless as the sharp cut of a paper's edge, Ken smiled.

"Yes. I am…" he whispered.

"I'm sorry I "

"I'm sorry about"

A short nervous laugh soothed their jangled nerves. She gave him her hand. He took it with both of his and kissed it like it was the most sacred thing. Her heart rejoiced with a maddening flutter. So it had not all been a hollow dream.

"I'm sorry for frightening you yesterday. I did not mean to at all." He said.

"No I…it was…it's just that…"she could barely breath as she spoke. Her stomach ached so horribly as the memories of Walter engulfed her, "It's just that I was thinking about Walter. A lot…and I…I-I just broke down…"

She had not realized that the death of Walter must have shattered Ken too. They were, after all, in the golden days, quite a pair. A shadow passed over his face but his jaw remained firm, like a soldier who accepted a cutting loss as part of his everyday duty.

_But this is Walter,_ she thought.

"He said you would come back," she said. The tears had begun to find their way to the rims of her eyes. At the sight of them, he cupped her face with his hands. But only more of them poured.

"Walter. Walter wrote to me before he died. He said you would come back."

As he gazed at her, he seemed to reminiscence about his closest friend, his poignant premonitions. It was like Walter had always known that he was meant solely for his youngest sister.

"Well he was right wasn't he?" he said and smiled. He wiped away the tears that strolled down and landed on his thumbs.

"Are you still Rilla-_My_-Rilla?"

Rilla smiled back and said, "Yeth"

Susan Baker thought the kitchen could not now be any cleaner.She had no worries about any cats making a havoc of the strawberry tarts that she had aligned carefully on a silver plate. She slapped her hands together to get the remaining flour off her old work-hardened palms. Mrs. Dr. would be proud of her confectionary concoctions, for sure. Most importantly, however, Susan meant to use them to bribe Shirley tonight into giving her the photograph of him in his aviator's suit. "Handsome brown boy" she muttered to herself.

She was on her way to fill Mrs. Dr. in on the supper menu when she saw the most spectacularly scandalous sight in the hallway. Staying back near the entrance of the kitchen, she watched it with her mouth hanging open.

That could not be baby Rilla closely and intimately enfolded in the arms of a tall dark-haired man, kissing him hungrily. A strong urge came to her to bark out her name and to tell her to behave like a proper lady. But then, she realized who the man was. _Could that be Kenneth Ford? Ken's back? Ken and Rilla?? _

Susan suddenly felt very foolish. Very foolish indeed. She recalled at once, like the quick flash of a match's flame, that night, years ago, when Ken had come to say goodbye on his last leave. He had come…so this is what it meant…he had come to say goodbye to Rilla in particular. There was no one else in the house to the keep the young guest company but Rilla… and she, Susan, had thought herself quite the heroine for arriving on time from the store to help the poor child. Susan shook her head at the mischief of the young ones. They must have both wished she were in Timbuktu or in the French trenches even.

But really! That was it! She had to intervene. Leslie West's son or not, Ken had no right to handle their baby like he was. A self-respecting young man would not kiss a girl like that before they were married! And in the hallway too! Why anyone could walk in! Dr. Blythe for example!

Where _was_ Dr. Blythe?

Anne was pursing her lips, still trying very hard not to laugh at Gilbert.

"How long are you going to keep me in here, Anne?!"

He was leaning against his desk with his arms firmly crossed. There was that huffy frowning expression on his face, the one he had inherited from great Grandfather Blythe.

"Just a bit more." She replied breezily, "Look Gilbert! That splendid willow tree is almost blocking your window. We need to trim it."

Gilbert did not look. He was staring at the Iranian rug beneath his polished shoes. He might not even have heard her.

Then they heard footsteps approaching the door. They both looked up. They knew that, with them, they carried news.

_Is it Ken coming to speak to Gilbert? But no that sounds more like_

"Susan!" Anne said.

Susan closed the door behind her very softly. She looked like someone whose eyes had blurred and could not quite see what was in front of them.

"Mrs. Dr. dear!" she began, "Will you please explain to me what is going on in this house?! Because I find myself at awe with the spectacle that is in the hallway! Susan Baker may be old-fashioned but she knows that no Ingleside girl has ever gone so far as to kiss a man in that manner… in the _hallway!_"

Anne burst out laughing. "Oh is it so very bad Susan?!"

But Gilbert was already at the door.

Ken released her gently but not quite letting go.

They stood there, leaning against each other, breathing in the fact that they were together at long last, that they had finally conquered the time, the distance, and the doubt. They breathed in the fact that the war was over and that it was time for their persevering seed to grow into a flourishing tree of fruit. They breathed in the ideals that Walter Blythe and others boys like him had fought for. They thought of their old naïve and untouched world and of the ripened and hardened world they were about to create.

1919 was upon them, a year that was like the salty wave that washed and cleansed a deep wound. The world was quiet now, hunched and suffering from the loss and pain of millions of souls. It was no longer a familiar place. But they knew that in time, walking upon its shaken paths would become easier, that their steps would become steadier.

Rilla smiled at the comforting smell of Ken's cologne. It was strong, gentle, and had just the right amount of spice in it. It was like an ambassador that told her that Ken was here in flesh and blood, and would always be.

Ken grinned bashfully at the ring he had placed on her finger. "Would have given it to you before I went. But imagine what that would have been like with Jims sleeping in your lap and Susan recalling the family history!"

Rilla laughed. She knew that, in truth, he could never have done such a thing because they both seemed to have landed into their romance underneath a spontaneous moon the night he left. Besides, she was only sixteen then.

He looked down into her big hazel eyes. They still seemed tired from her ordeal yesterday afternoon, tired from having had her heart wrung with the pain and agony of the past four years, but he resolved to return their sparkle… today, tomorrow, or in the years to come. Yes, Rilla Blythe would be blithe again. He would see to that.

Gilbert rushed through the dining room, through the parlor, and into the hallway where he saw his daughter looking up raptly at Ken Ford. Their hands were entwined by the magic thread of those few sweet moments. His hurried step slowed at the sight. He stopped at the threshold, looking at them for a second as though he were in a glass bubble, watching a dream he could not break.

Then he cleared his throat. The magic thread broke. Ken turned and flushed. Rilla looked away.

Gilbert gave Ken a stare. He did not mean to be harsh to the boy who had grown up with his children but propriety must be observed, after all.

"Where's mother?" Rilla asked quickly.

Still looking at Ken, Gilbert jerked his head at the study behind him and Rilla rushed past. As she did so, Gilbert caught a glimpse of a small sparkle coming from the region of her shyly fumbling hands. What he did not see was the impish look Rilla gave to Ken behind his back that said _face _that_ Captain Ford_!

"What are your intentions toward my daughter, Captain?" Gilbert demanded.

"Honorable, sir."

"Not very, I'm afraid."

"Sir?"

"Not very honorable according to Susan."

"According to Susan?"

"I'm sure she did not mean to but Susan was spying on you from the kitchen and she was horrified."

Ken's face reddened and for once since he came, a phantom of his old mirth returned to his eyes. His lips twitched but he did not think it appropriate to laugh at Susan at this moment.

"I-I might have kissed her a little too passionately. Forgive me."

There was a moment in which Ken stared at his boots wondering what to say next and how to say it. He thought of telling him that it was the image of Rilla that had carried him up from hill to hill in the Western Front, bloodied, soot-faced, and covered with the stench of human waste. But he was sure that every soldier would now be saying the exact same thing to the father of his loved one. He lifted his face finally and said in a pleading voice, "I love her, Uncle Gil. Deeply."

After all the "sirs", the "Uncle Gil" was the undoing of Gilbert. Ken was suddenly the small boy who had tantalized the kittens with a feather in this very hallway. He recalled the spanking he had given him and Walter for playing at the rim of the well.

"I mean to marry her…if you would give us your blessings of course."

"Have you spoken to her of this?" Gilbert asked, recalling the sparkle on Rilla's hand.

"Yes, I have. I hope that does not offend you."

"Captain"

"Please, don't call me that! You make it sound like I am no longer part of the family I grew up with!"

"You _are_ no longer part of the family you grew up with, Kenneth," Gilbert said, "because that family has changed now."

The heaviness of the war appeared on Gilbert's face. The loss of a son had peppered his dark hair with threads of silver. But finally, he smiled and extended a hand.

"Welcome to this family, Captain Kenneth Ford. You are welcomed in it as you were in the one of 1914."


End file.
